Exploring British Columbia...

The travel diaries are back, and this time I have been exploring Canada. Quite different from the usual holiday's that you've seen me go on, but never the less still amazing.

I have to admit the start to our holiday was not ideal... 5am start to travel to Gatwick airport to find that the airline (AirTransat) had wrongly informed us of our terminal. After running what seemed like a marathon with 6 cases, we arrived at the south terminal... faced with a 27-hour delay on our flight - perfect! So that sums up our outbound travel experience, overall losing two days of our holiday.

Negativity aside, Vancouver Island is beautiful we stayed with our wonderful friends Pauline and Megan who live in Victoria, located at the south of the Island. Visiting central Victoria is like being back in the UK, very British architecture and general street layouts. Central to all of this is the parliament building, the decision-making hub of British Columbia. I would highly recommend taking the parliament building tour, it's a free guided tour that takes between 30-45 minutes and is incredibly informative.

When travelling to Canada you know you're heading to somewhere surrounded by natural beauty, but it's not until you actually arrive until you truly get a glimpse of nature at it's finest. We decide to get the ferry from Tsawwassen over to Swartz Bay when we arrived in Vancouver, it worked out to be a much cheaper alternative to flying and allowed us to see much more of the island from afar.

 If you're planning a trip there yourself, I urge you to visit Whistler on the mainland; this is quite possibly the most beautiful place I've ever visited, stunning mountain views and glistening waters. Whilst it may be on the pricier side, it is 100% worth the visit and El Furniture Warehouse Restaurant is the perfect place to dine and is suitable for all budgets. Based within the idyllic town square, this American themed eatery offers a range of classic American dishes all priced at $5.

Whale watching was an experience that I would recommend to any animal lover, being able to see the animals in their natural habitat was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. We sailed with the 'Prince of Whales' crew, so informative and supportive of those passengers with a fear of boats (i.e. my mum). They offer a sighting guarantee, meaning that if you don't see a whale then you'll be able to sail again for free. We had this with our first experience, we only saw one humpback whale and they deemed that to be an 'unworthy' experience considering the ticket prices, so we went again and saw a pod of transient orcas. My one piece of advice would be to wrap up, it is much colder than you would expect out at sea, they do offer hats, scarves and gloves but it's far nicer to just arrive in layers.